{"id":22052,"date":"2022-03-23T21:08:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T21:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22052"},"modified":"2022-03-23T21:21:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T21:21:13","slug":"sleeve-monkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22052","title":{"rendered":"Sleeve Monkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s an interesting idiom in Dutch &#8211; <strong>Nu komt de aap uit de mouw<\/strong> &#8211; which means &#8216;now the monkey comes out of the sleeve&#8217; and is roughly the equivalent of the English idioms <strong>to let the cat out of the bag<\/strong> and <strong>to spill the beans<\/strong>. They mean to reveal a secret, or to reveal one&#8217;s true intentions.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/katja_calluy\/3629456373\/\" title=\"opdracht 10 De aap komt uit de mouw DSC_1804\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3661\/3629456373_9cbea0e741_z.jpg\" alt=\"opdracht 10 De aap komt uit de mouw DSC_1804\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Other versions of the Dutch idiom include:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>De aap springt uit de mouw<\/strong> = The monkey jumps out of the sleeve<\/li>\n<li><strong>De aap kijkt uit de mouw<\/strong> = The monkey looks out of the sleeve<\/li>\n<li><strong>De aap uit de mouw schudden<\/strong> = To shake the monkey out of the sleeve<\/li>\n<li><strong>Toen kwam de aap uit de mouw<\/strong> = Then the money came out of the sleeve = Then the true meaning became clear<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hij heeft de aap in de mouw<\/strong> = He has the monkey up his sleeve = He&#8217;s sneaky (hides his true nature)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The origins of the idiom <strong>to let the cat out of the bag<\/strong> are uncertain, although we do know it was first used in writing in <em>The London Magazine<\/em> in 1760 [<a href=\"https:\/\/knowyourphrase.com\/let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The origins of the idiom <strong>to spill the beans<\/strong> are also uncertain. It was first used in American in the early 20th century, so it&#8217;s unlikely to have come from the Ancient Greek practice of using coloured beans to vote, as many sources claim [<a href=\"https:\/\/thecontentauthority.com\/blog\/what-does-spill-the-beans-mean\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Dutch idioms come from the practice of performers hiding an actual monkey up their sleeves which would appear unexpectedly at a certain moment. Alternatively they might refer to our inner ape\/monkey or mischievous character which is usually hidden metaphorically up our sleeve [<a href=\"https:\/\/onzetaal.nl\/taaladvies\/nu-komt-de-aap-uit-de-mouw\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Are there any similar idioms in other languages?<\/p>\n<p><em>Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-dutch\/cat+out+of+the+bag\">Reverso<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ensie.nl\/spreekwoord\/nu-komt-de-aap-uit-de-mouw\">Ensie<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s an interesting idiom in Dutch &#8211; Nu komt de aap uit de mouw &#8211; which means &#8216;now the monkey comes out of the sleeve&#8217; and is roughly the equivalent of the English idioms to let the cat out of the bag and to spill the beans. They mean to reveal a secret, or to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,125,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-idioms","category-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22052"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22062,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22052\/revisions\/22062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}